Moral: You have to get lost to be found.

You ever had a smell or a song take you back to that exact moment when you first smelled that smell or heard that song?..

Of course you have, everyone has.

Friday night I was leaving my house (for a toy party that I ended up spending $50 at after vowing I wouldn’t spend a dime), and grabbed a body splash spray from my vanity...

I just happened to grab the Tropical Passionfruit, my body spray of choice when I was single about 2 years ago. I sprayed it and instantly had a smile on my face...

I was content with my life, more than content...Happy, before I sprayed it, but after I sprayed it..Now I can’t stop smiling...

I just want to keep spraying it.

I can remember it being July and being tan, tan for me, redheads don’t tend to get bronze or anything serious, and had just finished a two or three month workout period getting ready for Senior Week in OC... Single, that’s when I worked at Sunair, which is also a huge part of my life I don’t talk about too much. But in case there was any question, one of the happiest times of my life. I loved the people I worked with there. This job that was less than a half a mile from my house... Which made life even sweeter because at 5pm quittin time on Friday, I was home and ready to party by 5:05.

Anyway after smelling that body spray all evening, I had to see the ocean, I needed to be in OC, just to be on the island again, life just seems so much simpler there. Nothing to worry about except when the sun sets and rises and when the bars close… Of course it’s about thirty degrees in OC right now, actually right this second its forty six degrees (it’s on my desktop), so my partner in crime for the last few years and I grabbed a few things out of my room, including the body spray, and headed east on Route 50. (It took us about 30 seconds to decide she would drive since the Cavey gets like 60 mpg.)

Anytime either of us mentions the beach the other quickly agrees an immediate trip is necessary, so of course at this point it was after midnight on Friday, I had to be back by 5pm Saturday to get my taxes done, but we were too far involved by then, already amped for the trip not ready to be rational, LeAnn even considered taking on a pet (a hermit crab).

So by the time we had prepped at my favorite place on Earth, Exxon, and made our trip to OC it was almost 3am... after cooking on the grill most of the way there, we drive off the bridge to get onto the island and get pulled over, luckily the cop wasn’t prick of the year, and gave LouAnn a warning. We checked a few hotels till we found one that was open, finally got a room at the Monte Carlo on 3rd Street, and took an early morning stroll to the beach where it was absolutely freezing... But so familiar it didn’t even matter. We sat out there for about a half hour before crashing in the hotel...

Our little adventure ended with a short trip to the boardwalk in the AM and of course we had to visit the Panda Buffet right outside OC... Second greatest place on Earth. Stuffed ourselves with wontons, eggrolls, rice, and chicken...

Came home just in time to shower and get my taxes done, while LeAnn headed to a baby shower, then had the pleasure of spending Saturday night and Sunday morning with my brother Tyler, 13, two step sisters, Haleigh, 11, and Cheyenne, 9, and their cousins Alexis, 11, and Peyton, 7. Which I'm not gonna lie, they were so entertaining; I insisted they stuff balloons under their shirts and belly bump in the living room. Ahh good times... Loll.

Little sisters are good for a few things; Sunday morning I had a hair appointment with world famous beautician Cheyenne, if you’ve ever had long hair you know how good it feels when someone plays with it. No matter what I say they believe it, and whenever they first get to the house they rush to my shoe rack to check for new additions. Yess I know I’ve got them started young. Sometimes they get aggravating cuz the high pitched squeals never end when you put four young girls together, which I'm pretty sure I didn’t even want to tolerate when I was that age.. But then something happens that makes you forget all that. Sunday afternoon the neighbors two boxers one female, and her mate, jumped the fence into my yard.. Well when my five month old puppy tried to mount the female the male growled and broke out into a scuffle in our backyard where the girls were on the trampoline, I was in the basement with good friend Louie, when I hear this stomach curling scream, I don’t know if it’s a woman thing or if a child screaming in terror effects everyone the same, the growling of the other dog had scared the girls and Cheyenne was screaming my name to come save the dog.. Loll. Of course it wasn’t as big of a deal as it seemed to her but when I hear her screaming I dropped what I was doing and ran upstairs and from about five feet away she leaped into my arms and clung on for dear life.

The love of a child, their lives are so simple... It changes everything... I couldn’t help it but at that moment all I was worried about was making sure she wasn’t scared anymore. Even once she calmed down and I returned to what I was doing, I still couldn’t get that terrified scream out of my head, at the same time my heart swelled up when I realized why out of everyone she was screaming for me when she was scared… She looks up to me.. The pressure and responsibility of someone looking up to you is kind of scary but at the same time makes everything else seem less important, you just wanna do right by them.

Then, Sunday night, my weekend went out the same as it started... A trip around the block in the Cavey and a few episodes of Nip/Tuck.

So this weekend taught me a few things, even though I don’t want to be tied down right now and the thought of having to take care of anyone but myself makes me never want to date again, and how I want to pick up my entire life and move closer to the beach, one day I will want to settle down and have a family and forfeit my freedom to pass everything I’ve learned down to my offspring. Which will be the most important thing in my life, no matter what matters now, won’t mean anything once I have that love in my life.

This whole single thing is kind of amazing in a way. There are things I miss most definitely, but I know now that I need to do me for a while to get to the point where I want to be a wife and mother, something my mother, married and pregnant at 18 never got a chance to do... I understand now I have to be young and single and experience everything I can now so I can fully appreciate things later in life, potty training and sleeping with mom and dad cause she had a nightmare for example. loll. I always knew there were things I wanted to do before I married but I never realized that was the secret to a happy marriage, a happy life before marriage. By the time I am ready to marry I want to have done everything I could possibly do as a single white female in America, then I can do it all over again with someone I love, what more could a girl want?

Well, just had to get all that out..

&& to think it all started with a splash of Tropical Passionfruit.

Therapy comes in many forms. <3

brandi